How Do You Use Logos: Jeffrey Kranz

We’re kicking off a new series about the many interesting ways people are using Logos 5. If Logos is an important part of what you do and create, we’d love to hear about it!

OverviewBible.com

In this first installment, we’re talking with Jeffrey Kranz, a former Logos employee whose Overview Bible Project is a labor of love for opening Scripture to those who may not be overly familiar with it. I got together with Jeffrey and asked how Logos 5 is helping him in his efforts.

Tell us a little bit about OverviewBible.com. Where did the idea come from?

I started OverviewBible.com to help more people get the gist of every book of the Bible. I also post Bible study tips, infographics, and the like. The idea came after I noticed four things:

When pastors preach through a book of the Bible, it takes a while. Congregants can forget what the book is all about because the focus is on smaller passages. I figured there had to be a way to get each book’s overall theme stuck in people’s heads.

Bible dictionaries and handbooks give plenty of information on the individual books of the Bible, but I wanted to make something that gave people the big idea in three minutes or less.

From time to time, friends would stop me in conversation and ask, “Wait—what’s that book of the Bible about again?” I figured they weren’t the only ones wondering what Habakkuk is about.

We all know the Bible is important, and most of us wish we knew it better. I want to show off how interesting the individual books are so that others get curious enough to explore the Word for themselves.

How long have you been a Logos user?

Technically, I played with it on my parents’ computer a few times back in the Libronix days. I wised up and got my own Logos account in 2011, but really got hooked when Logos 5 came out in 2012. The more familiar I got with Logos, the more time I wanted to spend in it. Now I use the desktop and mobile apps nearly every day.

How do you use Logos 5 with OverviewBible.com?

How could I not use Logos 5 with OverviewBible.com? I do almost all my research in the software. When I was writing overviews on every book of the Bible, I had a method:

I’d read the book of the Bible in one sitting with Logos’ Bible app for iPad. I’d split the screen so I could read the Bible on the left and take notes on the right.

Because those notes are synced across my apps, I would open them in Logos 5 on my PC later. Then I’d dig into the original languages, consult commentaries and Bible dictionaries, and run lots and lots of morph searches.

Finally, I’d write my overview in WordPress. (By the way, OverviewBible.com is set up with Reftagger, so readers can just hover over a Scripture reference to see what that verse says.)

I’ve written text overviews of every book of the Bible, but 2014 has an even bigger project in store: infographics on every book. I’m doing the groundwork in Logos 5 now.

In short, there’s no way I’d take on this kind of project without Logos. It gives me a level of insight that otherwise I just wouldn’t have. A word of warning, though: if you’re a curious person, you can easily spend all day in Logos—it’s life-changing and addictive.

Which Logos 5 feature do you use most?

I think the morph search is the biggest time saver. I really enjoy being able to right-click any Greek or Hebrew word and generate a report on every place the Bible (or a specific set of passages) uses that word. Graphing out the results is fun, too. For example, I used this tool to find “the bossiest book of the Bible.”